Living-Room War

Thoughts, musings, behind the scenes, works in process, and with a little luck, a chronicle of the making of writer/director Doug Karr’s first feature film from development to distribution...

Friday, March 06, 2009

All-Nighter

It's 6am in the Lower East Side, the sun is rising over East River and I'm waiting for a render to finish. Eddie and I haven't pulled an all-nighter in a while, but when when we got approval late in the day yesterday on a spot we're directing for Nick at Nite, we knew we were in for a late one... of course a raid drive failure didn't help our cause.

Sitting circumspect as the streets just begin to bustle with traffic, it occurs to me that an awful lot has happened in just a few short years in NYC. Chop Wood Carry Water has grown from a tiny corner of a DUMBO office share into a lovely corner office overlooking much of Manhattan. And as the economy tanks, boot-strap tightening aside, we're still making movies. Having just returned from 10 crazy days in Park City, Utah where our film Ten For Grandpa played to sold out audiences at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, we're back in the swing, writing and re-writing our four feature screenplays, getting them polished up and starting to work on packaging them with cast.

I've got a few more gray hairs than when I stepped off the plane from Tokyo after many months traveling around the world and landing in NYC, but I've finally kicked my Ethiopian (Tanzanian? Indian?) stomach bug, and I'm feeling pretty excited about what the next couple of years are going to look like.

About Me

Doug Karr has worked in the film industry since 1997 creating original independent films. Karr's most recent project, the explosive black comedy, "Anniversary Present," stars David Alpay (Ararat) and Liane Balaban (New Waterford Girl). Karr’s 2003 mental health caper "The Straitjacket Lottery" (commissioned by CBC National and Bravo! Channel) screened at over 25 festivals and won multiple awards. Karr’s other credits include the award winning experimental documentary "LSD25," and the hour long documentary "Lifecycles: a story of AIDS in Malawi".